Re:Toxic toddler fruit pouches: "high" lead levels sicken 7 ...
by nameless912 on Tuesday November 07, 2023 @12:53PM
(#38180266)
> If it turns out that there's an undiscovered recessive gene for lead hyperaccumulation in the cinnamon tee and that tragedies like this are how it gets discovered
That's not what happens though, lead poisoning in spices is ~always shady actors adding pigment that's lead-heavy to make the spice (for example, cinnamon, turmeric, ground ginger, paprika) appear more vibrant in color. The Indian government did a whole bunch of work to fight against this a few years back; ultimately it's suppliers trying to adulterate their product to save money and make it look better than it is. This should absolutely be a serious crime, on the level of intentionally shipping any other dangerous product: jail time for executives, huge financial penalties for companies.
Re:Toxic toddler fruit pouches: "high" lead levels sicken 7 ...
by __MatrixMan__ on Tuesday November 07, 2023 @07:18PM
(#38185071)
I see. If it's not fentanyl it's lead.
Why are markets trying to kill us?
Re:Toxic toddler fruit pouches: "high" lead levels sicken 7 ...
by nameless912 on Thursday November 09, 2023 @11:41AM
(#38207274)
Because capitalism doesn't provide enough of a punishment mechanism to discourage this type of behavior? Especially the protectionist crony capitalism that exists in most of the "free world".
And if it's not negligence then maybe we need to raise the bar for testing such that any contamination indeed counts as negligence.
But lead is a pretty common metal. If it turns out that there's an undiscovered recessive gene for lead hyperaccumulation in the cinnamon tee and that tragedies like this are how it gets discovered, then we need to focus on raising the testing bar and not on punishment. Otherwise we create a situation where people are incentivized to hide data that could ultimately help prevent things like this in the future.